ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE ISLAND OF AQUIDNECK. 619 
could be used with propriety for the simultaneous melting, which 
appears to have taken place in the whole section here. I am 
inclined to think that the ice stream, no longer fed.with glacial 
matter and probably wasted by great rains and a strong heat, 
gradually came to rest, and then the same process of decay slowly 
separated the water from the stones, dropping them into their 
present resting places. 
The evidence of a readvance of the glacial matter, not in the 
form of a great sheet, but in the shape of separate streams, is by 
no means so clear here as it is to the northward. If it came at 
all it only lasted for a short time, and produced no considerable 
effects. 
I am inclined to think, however, that both the east and west 
channels gave passage to ice streams which returned to them long 
after the main sheet had disappeared. These local’ glaciers did 
not, however, reach farther south than the middle of the islands. 
The scorings upon the surface of the rock tell the same thing 
in all parts of the island ; the general course is from the north by 
west towards the south by east, but the individual differences are 
considerable. Many scratches depart widely from this range. In 
the rude jostle which took place at the point of contact of ice 
and rock, there would necessarily arise just such changes of direc- 
tion as are indicated on the rock surfaces. There is also a certain 
accommodation of direction of slope to contour of surface before 
4 stout boss of rock, where the flexible stream would turn a little 
for an easier escape. 
The cutting of the scratches is not as deep as in more northern 
regions ; there is nothing like the long deep drawn grooves of north- 
ern Vermont, or the region about the Great Lakes. This may be 
due as much to the prevailing weakness of the cutting tools, the 
Pebbles, as to a difference in the energy of movement of their 
Setting, the ice. On Price’s neck, a singularly good specimen of 
glacial erosion, the scratches are quite distinct and the amount 
of surface which shows ice action unusually large. The point of 
greatest interest connected with this locality is found in the evi- 
dence it affords concerning the depression of this region since the 
me when these furrows were graven. If it had been for any 
Considerable time beneath the sea it would have surely been 
ed from its present character. I believe that most, if not 
all of it, was beneath the sea at the time when the glacial sheet 
